DRSW 07

Chapter : 07

When I raised my thumb with a bright smile, the newlywed woman was fidgety and nervous, but in the end, she helped me. Perhaps seeing the husband who had beaten her day after day finally getting beaten himself had touched some deep part of her heart.

“You filled the bathtub with water. What are you planning to do? Water torture?”

Is this newlywed woman more excited than I am? Water torture would certainly be effective, but there was something else I wanted to test.

“Skill: Freeze.”

The Freeze skill was amazing. It was only level 5, but since it was an offensive skill, freezing water was practically instantaneous. When I froze the water solid, immobilizing the man, the newlywed’s husband came to his senses after a shiver ran through his entire body.

“Damn it! What the hell is this?! What the fuck are you doing, you crazy bastard?!”

He hadn’t sobered up completely. I smiled as gently as possible and firmly grasped the man’s hand. Then I used Freeze.

“AAAAAAARGH!”

When activating a skill, the first resource consumed is mental power. Once all mental power is depleted, the body coughs up blood as a warning. If you continue to force yourself to use skills after that, stamina is consumed. Once stamina is depleted as well, life force begins to be consumed, and you cough up blood again at that point. If you use up your life force too, you cough up blood one final time and die.

At our café, we called this the “three strikes and you cough blood” rule.

Using the skill repeatedly made me dizzy for a moment, but since I hadn’t coughed up blood, it seemed I hadn’t reached the point where I was consuming stamina yet.

“I froze your arm. From here on, I’ll be getting to work.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?!”

“You should’ve behaved yourself properly in the first place.”

I grinned.

What happened after that was omitted because it wasn’t suitable for minors to witness, but the man screamed things like:

“Fuck!”

and:

“What the hell did I ever do to you, you fucking lunatic?!”

He hurled all sorts of vulgar abuse at me, but as the unavoidable passage of time continued, he eventually accepted reality and shouted through his tears.

“I was wrong! I won’t do it again! Isn’t it enough if I just don’t hit her?!”

“You think you’re on equal footing with me, asshole?”

Since I couldn’t understand why he kept trying to talk back to me, I continued with my work. Only then did the man finally start begging me.

“I was wrong! I’m sorry! I swear I’ll never do it again! If my body gets any more damaged, I’ll have trouble making a living! Please, spare me!”

Hmm… Since he was begging that desperately, I couldn’t exactly keep going.

I asked the newlywed woman whether I should let him off at this point. Contrary to how enthusiastic she’d been until then, she had gone deathly pale. Trembling and on the verge of tears, she said this was more than enough.

“I live in this neighborhood. If I hear any bad news, I’ll come back, okay? I keep working until my client is satisfied.”

I gave him my biggest service smile and lightly patted the newlywed’s husband’s shoulder.

The ice in the bathtub could probably be thawed slowly by pouring hot water over it. I also made sure to provide proper aftercare for the newlywed and told her to come find me anytime if anything happened.

“First, the advance payment is one hundred thousand crowns.”

“Yes, yes! I’ll get it ready right away!”

The man sobbed loudly in the bathtub, while the newlywed woman prioritized handing me my money over thawing out her husband.

While she left the bathroom to get the money, I quietly said to the man:

“Try anything funny and I’ll kill you.”

My mother was from this village, so she had a good reputation among the village elders. Uncle Thomas was well respected not only among sailors but also among the men of the village. And I was close to both of them and under their protection.

Turning me into an enemy wouldn’t benefit the man in the slightest. If anything, people would say that he was framing me or picking a fight with Eleanor’s daughter for no reason.

The reason I had gone so far this time was because I was confident that my mother and I would be safe.

Uncle Thomas’s presence had been a huge help. The fact that my mother had been friends with him since childhood had worked greatly in my favor.

“Here are one hundred thousand crowns!”

“Yeah. Pay me the rest when you can afford it.”

“Yes, yes! Thank you! Have a safe trip home!”

After that, I went to keep an eye on the husband to make sure he didn’t try anything stupid. Fortunately, the man seemed to be so frightened of me that he was keeping his head down and living quietly.

No more injuries appeared on the newlywed’s face, and whenever she ran into me in the village, she greeted me warmly and added her thanks.

After taking the newlywed on as a client, I began making money by occasionally solving various minor problems around Ilam.

◇ ◆ ◇

The odd-job service business was more profitable than I’d expected.

It hadn’t even been a week since I started, but word spread through personal connections, and people from neighboring villages began coming to me with requests as well.

Before I knew it, I’d earned five million crowns.

I had recklessly used Freeze and Throw whenever I solved cases, so my skill levels had risen too.

Apparently, Evan’s skill, Making Do, applied to Mitchell as well.

It was honestly fucking amazing.

Mitchell Neftis

Status: Terminally Ill, Urshu’s Blessing

Experience: 100

N) Freeze Lv.6 — 600 until next level

N) Throw Lv.6 — 600 until next level

N) Healthy Lv.6 — 99 until next level

R) Noble’s Dignity

UR) Fusion

I snapped my left fingers and checked my status, then fell into thought.

Should I just invest that extra experience into Healthy?

I’d thought it was a rather unremarkable skill, but after its level increased, I could physically feel that my stamina and strength had increased by an absurd amount.

I didn’t get tired when running, and since I spent all day scurrying around looking for Titi, it was a skill I desperately needed right now.

“Eh, why not?”

N) Healthy has reached Lv.7.

Mitchell Neftis

Status: Terminally Ill, Urshu’s Blessing

Experience: 1

N) Freeze Lv.6 — 600 until next level

N) Throw Lv.6 — 600 until next level

N) Healthy Lv.7 — 699 until next level

R) Noble’s Dignity

UR) Fusion

After confirming that my level had increased, I lightly stretched and started running.

As I sprinted through the air with a whoosh, my body felt incredibly light. I think it took me only about ten seconds to run a hundred meters.

If I’d been in Korea, I could’ve gone to the Olympics.

“Chirp! Chirp-chirp!”

N) The skill Detection Lv.1 has been created.

Why did this skill appear too?

Detection… Maybe it was created because I’d learned to detect Geert by the sound of his footsteps before he came to the mine? Or perhaps it was because I’d been wandering around looking for Titi?

Either way, this was great.

A loud birdcall was coming from somewhere, but I couldn’t determine its exact direction. I used the Detection skill to locate the source of the chirping.

“Over there?”

After running for quite a while, I found a sparrow the size of a human head caught in a net trap, chirping with tears welling up in its eyes.

“How could you possibly…?”

“Chirp! Chirp-chirp!”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Chiiiiirp!”

Isn’t this thing a beastkin, too? Why is it this birdbrained?

Its wings looked like they’d been injured from the beginning, but even so, seeing something that was supposedly a beastkin get caught in a net designed to catch birds was shocking.

And this bird-catching net was… well…

It was incredibly simple.

They’d simply hung a flimsy net like a wall along a path frequented by birds. When birds passing by grabbed the loose strands of the net to rest, they couldn’t push off the ground and fly away while holding onto it. So they ended up stuck there, hanging helplessly from the net.

Then why not just let go of the net and fall to the ground before flying away?

Because they couldn’t think of that.

That’s why they’re called birdbrains.

“Hmm…”

I decided to stop marveling at the creature’s stupidity and rescue it quickly.

I needed to change the story’s progression. If I changed the progression, I’d receive experience.

“Chirp! Chirp-chirp-chirp! Chirp!”

Perhaps it understood that I was trying to help, because the enormous sparrow rubbed its head against my body and showered me with every bit of affection it could muster.

I gently grabbed the bird and freed its feet from the net.

As if it had been waiting for that moment, a notification sound rang out and a window appeared.

The progression has changed very slightly. 1,000 experience points will be awarded.

That’s it! That’s what I’m talking about!

I waited for this! One thousand points!

The moment I checked the notification, I tossed the sparrow far away and opened my status window.

“CHIIIIIRP!”

The bird, which was the size of a human head, let out a scream-like chirp, but that wasn’t important.

What mattered right now was the status window.

There had been something I’d been curious about ever since two status windows representing me had appeared.

Evan Laef

Status: Terminally Ill, Urshu’s Blessing